Traces of What Was Erased
By the time the morning light spilling through the window had deepened a shade further, the Imperial Princess rose from her seat.
Her teacup remained less than half empty.
On the table lay the barrier chamber ledger, the list of banquet attendees, and several floor plans stacked atop one another.
The Princess pulled on her gloves as she spoke.
"Shall we go, then."
I rose from my chair.
"Are we heading straight to the archives?"
"Rumors spread as if they have legs of their own. Better to check before the rats get their hands on the ledgers any further."
Lady Adelaide gathered the documents and handed them to a waiting attendant.
She had barely rested through the night, yet not a single strand of her composure was out of place.
The only change was the way her gaze lingered, just for a moment, whenever it fell on the bandages around my hand.
When the reception room door opened, the air of the outer corridor seeped in.
As expected, the stares arrived first.
A low-ranking noble walking between the Imperial Princess and a duchess.
A face seen moving through the palace together from the morning after the banquet hall's collapse.
People kept their mouths shut, and that silence only made the noise louder.
The Princess made no effort to pretend she did not notice.
She simply did not stop walking.
She carried herself with such unflinching confidence that it almost looked as if she were deliberately drawing every eye in the corridor.
I spoke in a low voice from half a step behind her.
"Your Highness."
"Speak."
"Is it wise to move this openly?"
Her stride did not slow in the slightest.
"I'm doing this precisely because it is wise."
"The rumors will only grow."
"They should."
Her tone was so matter-of-fact she might as well have been commenting on the weather.
I fell silent for a moment.
Lady Adelaide spoke from beside us.
"Her Highness never intended to hide anything in the first place."
"If you try to conceal something halfheartedly, it only looks more suspicious."
The Princess continued.
"Better to make it look as though there's a reason to keep you close inside the palace. Especially if someone is already targeting you, Sir."
It was not a comforting thing to hear.
And the moment those words left her mouth, a familiar gray figure appeared at the far end of the gallery.
Serena.
With a single maid at her side, she stood some distance away, watching us.
Her gaze rested on me once, then shifted to the Princess.
Then to Lady Adelaide.
She said nothing, yet that brief silence was enough.
The Princess seemed to feel that stare as well; she lifted her chin slightly.
But she did not stop.
As we passed Serena, I never once looked her way.
Instead, the weight of her gaze on my back only grew sharper.
The Imperial Archives lay on the lower floor of the eastern wing of the main palace.
A place reached only after turning through several galleries, descending a full level, and walking a nearly windowless stone corridor.
A space where the scent of paper and ink lingered longer than any human presence.
An elderly archivist was waiting at the door.
The moment he saw the Princess, he bowed deeply at the waist.
"Your Highness. The ledgers you requested have been prepared in the inner reading room."
The Princess gave a slight nod.
"And no one touched them overnight?"
"No one, Your Highness. I sealed them myself with my own stamp, so—"
The Princess's eyes narrowed a fraction.
"I believed that same claim last night, and one of the barrier chambers was opened anyway."
The archivist's face went paper-white.
"I beg your pardon."
The Princess did not press him further and simply stepped inside.
The archives were cool.
Documents stood packed tight, metal filing cabinets set into the walls in dense rows.
On the central table of the reading room lay four ledgers, a small bronze paperweight, and a single seal case.
The Princess jerked her chin toward me.
"This is what you saw last night."
I opened the topmost ledger.
The barrier chamber access records.
The same blank line I had seen yesterday was still empty.
What was strange was not the blank itself, but everything around it.
Without laying a hand on the paper, I lowered my eye level slightly.
The ink on the neighboring lines was even, yet the grain of the paper near the empty space had risen in the faintest of ridges.
Traces of something that had been wiped away.
"Your Highness."
The Princess came to my side.
"Did you find something?"
"There are traces of a record being erased."
Lady Adelaide stood on the opposite side and looked down at the ledger as well.
"It doesn't look as if it was washed with water."
"No. The paper itself is barely damaged. They used something that dissolves only the ink."
The archivist carefully interjected.
"The palace ledgers use sealed ink, not ordinary ink. Precisely so they cannot be erased at will."
I lifted my head.
"Then whoever erased it knew that."
The archivist's lips pressed tight.
It meant the hand of someone who understood the inner workings of the palace.
The Princess shifted the paperweight to pin down the corner of the ledger.
"What kind of tool would that be?"
I thought for a moment before answering.
"It may be a chemical rather than a tool. Among the solutions used for internal calibration of the barrier chambers, there should be something with similar properties."
Lady Adelaide raised her eyes.
"You mean the solution used to wipe residue from the barrier lines?"
"Most likely."
The Princess turned to the archivist.
"Bring the inventory records for that solution as of last night."
The archivist bowed hastily and withdrew.
I looked at the ledger again.
To the left of the empty line was the entry time; to the right, the purpose of entry.
Even though the space was blank, the grain of the paper had not fully settled.
The impression of pressure remained.
Someone had set pen to paper and written something there.
I unconsciously rubbed the bandaged palm of my hand.
"There are impressions left in the shape of writing."
The Princess asked again.
"Can you read them?"
"Not clearly… but I think I can make out a little."
Lady Adelaide immediately cast a glance toward the archivist.
"Do you have anything like pencil dust?"
The old archivist hesitated.
"Pardon?"
"If not, charcoal powder will do. Ground very fine."
He nodded quickly and hurried back into the inner rooms.
The Princess looked at Lady Adelaide.
"You know the most unexpected things, my lady."
"We use it occasionally in the map room."
The Princess let the remark pass without further comment.
A moment later the archivist returned with a small box.
Lady Adelaide tipped a little of the black powder onto a handkerchief, then tapped it lightly with her fingertips rather than scattering it directly over the ledger.
As the fine dust settled into the grain of the paper, faint impressions rose across the blank space.
A few strokes remained.
I leaned in slightly.
"Two characters."
The Princess narrowed her eyes as well.
"A name?"
"…No. This is the column for purpose of entry."
The first stroke was long and straight.
The second flowed downward before curling inward.
Lady Adelaide spoke softly.
"Inspection."
I had been thinking the same thing.
The impressions of a purpose of entry that leaned toward inspection.
The Princess's gaze sharpened.
"Someone with reason to inspect a barrier chamber."
The archivist answered hurriedly.
"Not an ordinary knight or attendant, then. Only a steward… or a records officer with direct imperial authorization—"
The Princess cut him off.
"Bring me the list."
"Yes, Your Highness."
While the archivist bustled away again, I checked the dates further down the ledger once more.
And I found something odd.
"Your Highness."
"What is it this time?"
"This ledger… it doesn't look as if only yesterday's entry was tampered with."
Both the Princess's and Lady Adelaide's eyes fixed on my fingertip at once.
I turned several more pages and opened the record from three days prior.
There was another line here.
It was not blank, but the color of the seal was minutely different.
"Here."
Lady Adelaide leaned closer.
"The same person?"
"I can't be certain. It looks like something hastily added later. Traces of forging a similar stamp after the fact."
Without asking, the Princess flipped the pages to the next day, then the day after that.
After a long silence, she spoke very slowly.
"…It wasn't the first time."
The words settled low into the quiet of the archives.
For at least several days—perhaps far longer—someone had been tampering with the barrier chamber access records.
At that moment, hurried footsteps sounded outside the door.
A knight entered and stopped before the Princess.
"Your Highness."
She lifted her gaze.
"What is it?"
The knight's eyes flicked briefly toward me before dropping again.
"Lady Valter is waiting at the entrance to the archives."
The room fell quiet for a moment.
The Princess did not look the least bit surprised.
If anything, she looked as though she had expected it.
"Alone?"
"Accompanied by only one maid."
Lady Adelaide closed the documents without a word, and I slowly let out a breath.
The Princess turned to me.
"Sir Elberhart."
"…Yes."
"What do you think we should do?"
The question was directed at me, yet her eyes did not look as if she intended to decide the situation based on my answer.
It felt more like she was testing how far I would be shaken.
I thought for a moment.
Serena had sought me out twice since morning.
It was already too late to claim nothing had happened.
"As Your Highness decides."
The corner of the Princess's mouth curved slightly.
"What a dull man you are."
"Wouldn't it be inconvenient if I became interesting for no good reason?"
At those words, the sound of pages turning on Lady Adelaide's side stopped.
The Princess lightly tapped the table with one hand, then spoke to the knight.
"Show her in. Leave the door open."
It was more blatant than I had expected.
I lowered my gaze.
This would not end well.
A moment later the archive door opened and Serena stepped inside.
Her complexion was even paler than when I had seen her in the gallery that morning.
Yet her steps did not falter.
As befitting the eldest daughter of House Valter, she held on to at least the outward form of composure to the very end.
Her gray eyes swept the room.
The Princess. Lady Adelaide. And me.
Even in that brief instant, I could tell what she had seen.
Serena offered a formal bow to the Princess.
"Your Highness. Forgive my rudeness so early in the morning."
"Of course—"
There was not a shred of emotion in the Princess's voice.
"You have business, I assume?"
That dry, unreadable manner only tightened the noose around a person's throat all the more.
Serena drew a very short breath.
"I wished to ask whether I might speak with Sir Elberhart for a moment."
The archives fell silent.
The Princess did not answer at once.
Instead she looked slowly toward me, then back to Serena.
"Lady Valter."
"Yes, Your Highness."
"Sir Elberhart is currently a person of interest in connection with the irregularities in the imperial barrier chambers."
Serena's fingertips stiffened faintly.
"I am aware."
"And yet you still insist on speaking alone, right now?"
Serena chose her words carefully before opening her mouth.
"It need not be alone."
The answer seemed unexpected enough that Lady Adelaide's eyes lifted a fraction.
Serena continued without looking at me.
"…There is something I failed to say properly at the banquet yesterday. I feel I must say it now."
I watched her quietly.
The Princess rested her chin lightly on one hand.
"Very well. Then say it here."
Inside the archives, with the door left open.
In the presence of the Princess, Lady Adelaide, a knight, and the archivist.
Serena's face went pale for the briefest instant.
But she did not step back.
At last her gaze met mine.
The hesitation that had lingered in those gray eyes finally hardened into resolve.
"Sir Rion."
Her voice was quieter than I had expected.
"…I believe I misspoke to you yesterday. I hope you will not take it seriously."
No one immediately answered.
I said nothing at all.